SC commutes death sentence to life imprisonment of Kolkata policeman

New Delhi, Dec 17(UNI) The Supreme Court has commuted the death sentence of a Kolkata policeman, convicted for killing his brother over a property dispute, to life imprisonment.

A bench comprising Justices S B Sinha and Dalveer Bhandari, in a 95-page judgment on December 12 held the case of the appellant Aloke Nath Dutta did not fall in the category of the rarest of the rare cases warranting capital punishment.

The apex court, however acquitted other appellants including Aloke's wife Mamta, his sister-in-law and her husband Shib Sankar Roy alias Gobinda alias Babu Roy.

The convict along with other appellants allegedly throttled the deceased Biswanath while he was asleep at night on January 22, 1994.

Biswanath who was working in United Bank of India was killed for opposing the sale of the ancestral property.

On the point of capital punishment, the apex court observed, ''We must remind ourselves that there has been a growing demand in the international fora that death penalty should be abolished...several countries have abolished death penalty.'' Upholding the conviction of Aloke Nath Dutta, the supreme court also relied on its earlier judgment in the Parliament Attack case to bring out the fact that different benches of the apex court have been taking different views on the question of awarding extreme penalty while holding that so long the death sentence formed part of the statute, its application cannot be ruled out.

UNI AKS/SC PA RS0938